Tag: Equifax

Find Out About Equifax Reporting

Did You Want to Learn About Equifax Reporting?

It is time to learn about the business credit reporting agencies. More specifically, Equifax reporting.

But let us start with some definitions and background on business credit.

Business Credit

This is credit in the name of a business. It is not tied to the creditworthiness of its owner or owners. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

Business Credit Benefits

There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of business accounts. Business credit utilization is not going to affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the business owner is not going to be personally liable for the debt the business incurs.

Business Credit Details

Being accepted for business credit is not automatic. Building business credit requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.

Fundability

Fundability is the current ability of our business to get funding. Some factors are within your control. Others (like your time in business) are not. Your online presence and data are one area which is at or close to 100% with your control.

Business Credit, Fundability, and Business Funding Applications

The better your business credit and fundability are, the more likely you are going to get approval for business financing. Today, let us concentrate on Equifax reporting.

There are Three Different Credit Bureaus – But What Differentiates Equifax Reporting?

What distinguishes the three biggest credit bureaus? And can you use that information to your advantage?

There are three main credit bureaus for business: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. CreditSafe and FICO SBSS are also players in this space.

In the business world Equifax and Experian are up there, but it is Dun & Bradstreet which is the major player.

Dun and Bradstreet has more than 10 times the records of the next closest reporting agency. For more details, see dnb.com/about-us/company.html. Even when talking about Equifax reporting, it makes sense to start with Dun and Bradstreet. You are going to have to start the business credit building process with them anyway.

Dun & Bradstreet

Go to Dun and Bradstreet’s website and look for your business, at dnb.com/duns-number. What happens if you can’t find it? Then get a free D-U-N-S number. You are going to always need a D-U-N-S number to start building business credit. Go here to get a D-U-N-S number: dnb.com/duns-number/get-a-duns.html.

D-U-N-S Numbers

A D-U-N-S number is how Dun and Bradstreet gets your company into their system. And a D-U-N-S number plus 3 payment experiences leads to a PAYDEX score. A payment experience is a record of a purchase from a business which reports to a credit reporting agency. In this case, Dun and Bradstreet. Once you are in Dun and Bradstreet’s system, search Equifax and Experian’s sites for your business. You can do so at creditsuite.com/reports.

Equifax Reporting

You can check out a sample of Equifax reporting at https://assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

The company gets its data from a data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange, Net 30 type industry trade credit information, and from a wide variety of suppliers that provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis.

Equifax combines financial data with industry trade credit data. They add in utility and telephone data and public record information (bankruptcies, judgments, and tax liens).

Here’s what that report says.

Company Identifying Information

The first section is devoted to identifying information about your company, namely your business name and address and telephone number. This section will also include your Equifax ID. An Equifax ID is how Equifax can tell your business from similarly-named businesses.

Credit Risk Score

The next section is about the Credit Risk Score. This score runs from 101 to 992. Higher numbers are better. This section also shows key factors.

Key factors are positives and negatives about your business, such as how old your oldest account is, and whether you have any charge-offs, and the size of your business.

Credit Utilization

The next section shows credit utilization. This is shown as a pie chart. It graphically shows which percent of your available credit line you are using. It also has identifying labels to show how much each percentage truly is. But it is only for your financial accounts.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Payment Index

The next part is your Payment Index. The score runs from 0 to 100. Higher numbers are better. It also shows Industry Median.

There is also a table explaining the numbers:

  • 90+: Paid as Agreed
  • 80-89: 1-30 days overdue
  • 60-79: 31-60 days overdue
  • 40-59: 61-90 days overdue
  • 20-39: 91-120 days overdue
  • 1-19: 120+ days overdue

Days Beyond Terms

This is a line graph. It shows the average days beyond terms by date reported. It is for non-financial accounts only. Plus it shows any recent trends, so if you’ve improved your payment habits, it will show up here.

Business Failure Score

The next piece is on your Business Failure Score. This score runs from 1000 to 1880. It shows its own key factors, like recent balance information.

Inquiries

The next section is devoted to inquiries. It shows the date, and whether it was an inquiry on a financial or non-financial account. This is a rather short part of the report.

Bureau Messages

The bureau messages part, appears to be a free form field. It seems its purpose is to add notes to a profile. These can be notes on the number of locations, or business aliases.

Bureau Summary Data

The bureau summary data section contains a wealth of information. It shows:

  • The number of financial and non-financial accounts
  • Date the credit became active
  • Number of charge offs
  • Total dollars past due
  • Most severe status in 24 months
  • Single highest credit extended
  • Total current card exposure
  • Median balance
  • Average open balance

It also shows Recent Activity, which includes:

  • The number of accounts delinquent
  • New accounts opened
  • Inquiries and
  • Accounts updated

Public Records

The public records section has information on:

  • Type Status:
    • Bankruptcy
    • Judgments
    • Whether judgments are satisfied or not
    • Liens filed and opened, or released
    • Number
    • Dollar and
    • Most recent date filed

If there are none reported, then the date field will indicate as much.

Additional Information

The final section appears to contain somewhat miscellaneous information, which probably doesn’t fit in well anywhere else. such as alternate company Names and DBAs.

It also contains:

  • Owners and Guarantor Names (name, type, date reported)
  • Business and Guarantor Comments (seems to be another free form field) and
  • Report Details (this shows the date the report was generated)

Improving Your Equifax Report

Now that you know what goes into it, you can see that some of the more important pieces of data Equifax looks into are:

  • public records
  • credit usage
  • and how you handle your financial and nonfinancial accounts

Improve your Equifax score by:

  • Clearing your debts as quickly as possible and not going delinquent
  • Keeping credit utilization within reason, as that makes it easier to pay your bills
  • And avoiding late payments

Whatever improves your Equifax report is bound to improve your reports at D&B and Experian. Paying off accounts pays dividends, as does avoiding bankruptcies.

Disputing Issues with Your Equifax Report

Equifax will not change your scores without proof. They are starting to accept more and more online disputes. Include proofs of payment with it. These are documents like receipts and cancelled checks.

Fixing credit report errors also means you specifically spell out any charges you challenge. Make your dispute as crystal clear as possible. If you need to snail mail anything in, then use certified mail so that you will have proof that you sent in your dispute. Correct Equifax issues at: equifax.com/small-business-faqs/#Dispute-FAQs. Be specific about the concerns with your report.

Monitoring Reporting

Use Equifax Complete. It currently costs $19.95 per month, after an offer of 30 days for $4.95. See equifax.com/equifax-complete/Equifax.

Monitoring Your Business Credit Scores and Reports at the Major Business CRAs

Add monitoring for all three big CRAs together for a year and it costs $468 for Dun and Bradstreet, $189 for Experian, and $224.40 for Equifax (with the special). So this is for a grand total of $881.40!

Monitoring Your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax Credit Scores and Reports

You can monitor your business credit at Dun and Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian through Credit Suite, for considerable savings over what it would cost you at those different credit bureaus. And this is all in one place! Credit Suite offers monitoring through the Business Finance Suite (through Nav). See what credit issuers and lenders see so you can directly improve your scores and get the business credit and funding you need. See suitelogin.com and creditsuite.com/monitoring.

Equifax Data Breach

No blog post on Equifax reporting would be complete without at least mentioning the recent data breach. The company does seem to be better about making sure that consumers can get monitoring without having to jump through quite so many expensive hoops.

In addition, any pursuit of the company through Congress seems to have ground to a screeching halt. However, that may be due to the 2020 pandemic and election.

Will Equifax’s current and former management end up back in the hot seat again? Only time will tell.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Equifax Reporting: Takeaways

Equifax gets much of its data from the Small Business Financial Exchange.

Monitoring reports from all three of the bigger business credit reporting agencies is expensive. But you can save 90% by monitoring your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax scores through Credit Suite.

The post Find Out About Equifax Reporting appeared first on Credit Suite.

Find Out About Equifax Reporting

Did You Want to Learn About Equifax Reporting?

It is time to learn about the business credit reporting agencies. More specifically, Equifax reporting.

But let us start with some definitions and background on business credit.

Business Credit

This is credit in the name of a business. It is not tied to the creditworthiness of its owner or owners. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

Business Credit Benefits

There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of business accounts. Business credit utilization is not going to affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the business owner is not going to be personally liable for the debt the business incurs.

Business Credit Details

Being accepted for business credit is not automatic. Building business credit requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.

Fundability

Fundability is the current ability of our business to get funding. Some factors are within your control. Others (like your time in business) are not. Your online presence and data are one area which is at or close to 100% with your control.

Business Credit, Fundability, and Business Funding Applications

The better your business credit and fundability are, the more likely you are going to get approval for business financing. Today, let us concentrate on Equifax reporting.

There are Three Different Credit Bureaus – But What Differentiates Equifax Reporting?

What distinguishes the three biggest credit bureaus? And can you use that information to your advantage?

There are three main credit bureaus for business: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. CreditSafe and FICO SBSS are also players in this space.

In the business world Equifax and Experian are up there, but it is Dun & Bradstreet which is the major player.

Dun and Bradstreet has more than 10 times the records of the next closest reporting agency. For more details, see dnb.com/about-us/company.html. Even when talking about Equifax reporting, it makes sense to start with Dun and Bradstreet. You are going to have to start the business credit building process with them anyway.

Dun & Bradstreet

Go to Dun and Bradstreet’s website and look for your business, at dnb.com/duns-number. What happens if you can’t find it? Then get a free D-U-N-S number. You are going to always need a D-U-N-S number to start building business credit. Go here to get a D-U-N-S number: dnb.com/duns-number/get-a-duns.html.

D-U-N-S Numbers

A D-U-N-S number is how Dun and Bradstreet gets your company into their system. And a D-U-N-S number plus 3 payment experiences leads to a PAYDEX score. A payment experience is a record of a purchase from a business which reports to a credit reporting agency. In this case, Dun and Bradstreet. Once you are in Dun and Bradstreet’s system, search Equifax and Experian’s sites for your business. You can do so at creditsuite.com/reports.

Equifax Reporting

You can check out a sample of Equifax reporting at https://assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

The company gets its data from a data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange, Net 30 type industry trade credit information, and from a wide variety of suppliers that provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis.

Equifax combines financial data with industry trade credit data. They add in utility and telephone data and public record information (bankruptcies, judgments, and tax liens).

Here’s what that report says.

Company Identifying Information

The first section is devoted to identifying information about your company, namely your business name and address and telephone number. This section will also include your Equifax ID. An Equifax ID is how Equifax can tell your business from similarly-named businesses.

Credit Risk Score

The next section is about the Credit Risk Score. This score runs from 101 to 992. Higher numbers are better. This section also shows key factors.

Key factors are positives and negatives about your business, such as how old your oldest account is, and whether you have any charge-offs, and the size of your business.

Credit Utilization

The next section shows credit utilization. This is shown as a pie chart. It graphically shows which percent of your available credit line you are using. It also has identifying labels to show how much each percentage truly is. But it is only for your financial accounts.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Payment Index

The next part is your Payment Index. The score runs from 0 to 100. Higher numbers are better. It also shows Industry Median.

There is also a table explaining the numbers:

  • 90+: Paid as Agreed
  • 80-89: 1-30 days overdue
  • 60-79: 31-60 days overdue
  • 40-59: 61-90 days overdue
  • 20-39: 91-120 days overdue
  • 1-19: 120+ days overdue

Days Beyond Terms

This is a line graph. It shows the average days beyond terms by date reported. It is for non-financial accounts only. Plus it shows any recent trends, so if you’ve improved your payment habits, it will show up here.

Business Failure Score

The next piece is on your Business Failure Score. This score runs from 1000 to 1880. It shows its own key factors, like recent balance information.

Inquiries

The next section is devoted to inquiries. It shows the date, and whether it was an inquiry on a financial or non-financial account. This is a rather short part of the report.

Bureau Messages

The bureau messages part, appears to be a free form field. It seems its purpose is to add notes to a profile. These can be notes on the number of locations, or business aliases.

Bureau Summary Data

The bureau summary data section contains a wealth of information. It shows:

  • The number of financial and non-financial accounts
  • Date the credit became active
  • Number of charge offs
  • Total dollars past due
  • Most severe status in 24 months
  • Single highest credit extended
  • Total current card exposure
  • Median balance
  • Average open balance

It also shows Recent Activity, which includes:

  • The number of accounts delinquent
  • New accounts opened
  • Inquiries and
  • Accounts updated

Public Records

The public records section has information on:

  • Type Status:
    • Bankruptcy
    • Judgments
    • Whether judgments are satisfied or not
    • Liens filed and opened, or released
    • Number
    • Dollar and
    • Most recent date filed

If there are none reported, then the date field will indicate as much.

Additional Information

The final section appears to contain somewhat miscellaneous information, which probably doesn’t fit in well anywhere else. such as alternate company Names and DBAs.

It also contains:

  • Owners and Guarantor Names (name, type, date reported)
  • Business and Guarantor Comments (seems to be another free form field) and
  • Report Details (this shows the date the report was generated)

Improving Your Equifax Report

Now that you know what goes into it, you can see that some of the more important pieces of data Equifax looks into are:

  • public records
  • credit usage
  • and how you handle your financial and nonfinancial accounts

Improve your Equifax score by:

  • Clearing your debts as quickly as possible and not going delinquent
  • Keeping credit utilization within reason, as that makes it easier to pay your bills
  • And avoiding late payments

Whatever improves your Equifax report is bound to improve your reports at D&B and Experian. Paying off accounts pays dividends, as does avoiding bankruptcies.

Disputing Issues with Your Equifax Report

Equifax will not change your scores without proof. They are starting to accept more and more online disputes. Include proofs of payment with it. These are documents like receipts and cancelled checks.

Fixing credit report errors also means you specifically spell out any charges you challenge. Make your dispute as crystal clear as possible. If you need to snail mail anything in, then use certified mail so that you will have proof that you sent in your dispute. Correct Equifax issues at: equifax.com/small-business-faqs/#Dispute-FAQs. Be specific about the concerns with your report.

Monitoring Reporting

Use Equifax Complete. It currently costs $19.95 per month, after an offer of 30 days for $4.95. See equifax.com/equifax-complete/Equifax.

Monitoring Your Business Credit Scores and Reports at the Major Business CRAs

Add monitoring for all three big CRAs together for a year and it costs $468 for Dun and Bradstreet, $189 for Experian, and $224.40 for Equifax (with the special). So this is for a grand total of $881.40!

Monitoring Your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax Credit Scores and Reports

You can monitor your business credit at Dun and Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian through Credit Suite, for considerable savings over what it would cost you at those different credit bureaus. And this is all in one place! Credit Suite offers monitoring through the Business Finance Suite (through Nav). See what credit issuers and lenders see so you can directly improve your scores and get the business credit and funding you need. See suitelogin.com and creditsuite.com/monitoring.

Equifax Data Breach

No blog post on Equifax reporting would be complete without at least mentioning the recent data breach. The company does seem to be better about making sure that consumers can get monitoring without having to jump through quite so many expensive hoops.

In addition, any pursuit of the company through Congress seems to have ground to a screeching halt. However, that may be due to the 2020 pandemic and election.

Will Equifax’s current and former management end up back in the hot seat again? Only time will tell.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Equifax Reporting: Takeaways

Equifax gets much of its data from the Small Business Financial Exchange.

Monitoring reports from all three of the bigger business credit reporting agencies is expensive. But you can save 90% by monitoring your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax scores through Credit Suite.

The post Find Out About Equifax Reporting appeared first on Credit Suite.

The post Find Out About Equifax Reporting appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

Learn About Your Equifax Credit Report

Did You Want to Learn About Your Equifax Credit Report?

It is time to learn about your Equifax credit report.

But let us start with some definitions and background on business credit.

Business Credit

This is credit in the name of a business. It is not tied to the creditworthiness of its owner or owners. Instead, business credit scores are going to depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Hence consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

Business Credit Benefits

There are no demands for a personal guarantee. You can quickly get business credit regardless of personal credit quality. And there is no personal credit reporting of business accounts. Business credit utilization is not going to affect your consumer FICO score. Plus the business owner is not going to be personally liable for the debt the business incurs.

Business Credit Details

Being accepted for business credit is not automatic. Building business credit requires some work. Some of the steps are intuitive, and some of them are not.

Fundability

Fundability is the current ability of our business to get funding. Some factors are within your control. Others (like your time in business) are not. Your online presence and data are one area which is at or close to 100% with your control.

Business Credit, Fundability, and Business Funding Applications

The better your business credit and fundability are, the more likely you will get approval for business financing. Today, let us concentrate on your Equifax report.

Build Fundability on Business Credit Applications to Avoid Denials

Keep your business looking fundable (legit) with:

  • A professional website and email address
  • A toll-free phone number
  • List your phone number with 411
  • A business address (not a PO box or a UPS box)
  • Get all necessary licenses for running your business

Fundability: Industry Alignment

If your business is over the road trucking, then it needs to be listed that way. Pro tip: when your industry can be called several different names, like long distance trucking, mention those other phrases on your website.

There are Three Main Credit Bureaus – But What Differentiates an Equifax Credit Report?

What distinguishes Equifax reports from reports from the other two main credit bureaus? And can you use that information to your advantage?

Business Credit Reporting Agencies

There are three different credit bureaus for business: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. FICO SBSS and CreditSafe are also players.

In the business world Equifax and Experian are up there, but it is Dun & Bradstreet which is the major player.

Dun and Bradstreet has more than 10 times the records of the next closest reporting agency. For more information, see dnb.com/about-us/company.html. It makes sense to start with Dun and Bradstreet, even when looking at your Equifax credit report. This is because you are going to have to start the business credit building process with them anyway.

Dun & Bradstreet

Dun and Bradstreet is the oldest and largest credit reporting agency. Go to Dun and Bradstreet’s website and look for your business, at dnb.com/duns-number. But what happens if you are unable to find it? Then get a free D-U-N-S number. You will always need a D-U-N-S number to start building business credit. Go here to get a D-U-N-S number: dnb.com/duns-number/get-a-duns.html.

A D-U-N-S number is how Dun and Bradstreet gets your company into their system. And a D-U-N-S number plus 3 payment experiences leads to a PAYDEX score. A payment experience is a record of a purchase from a business which reports to a credit reporting agency. In this case, Dun and Bradstreet. Once you are in Dun and Bradstreet’s system, search Equifax and Experian’s sites for your business. You can do so at creditsuite.com/reports.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Your Equifax Credit Report

But your Equifax credit report is going to be different. The company gets its data from:

  • A data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange
  • Net 30 type industry trade credit information from a wide variety of suppliers
  • These suppliers provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis

Equifax scores answer one basic question. How likely is a business to go severely delinquent in its payments? The score is an indication of whether a company is likely to make late payments.

You can check out a sample Equifax credit report for small business at https://assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

Here’s what’s in that report.

Company Identifying Information

The first section is devoted to identifying information about your company, namely your business name and address and telephone number. This section will also include your Equifax ID. An Equifax ID is how Equifax can tell your business from similarly-named businesses.

Credit Risk Score

The next section is about the Credit Risk Score. This score runs from 101 to 992. Higher numbers are better. This section also shows key factors.

Key factors are positives and negatives about your business, such as how old your oldest account is, and whether you have any charge-offs, and the size of your business.

Credit Utilization

The next section shows credit utilization. This is shown as a pie chart. It graphically shows which percent of your available credit line you are using. It also has identifying labels to show how much each percentage truly is. But it is only for your financial accounts.

Payment Index

The next part is your Payment Index. The score runs from 0 to 100. Higher numbers are better. It also shows Industry Median.

There is also a table explaining the numbers:

  • 90+: Paid as Agreed
  • 80-89: 1-30 days overdue
  • 60-79: 31-60 days overdue
  • 40-59: 61-90 days overdue
  • 20-39: 91-120 days overdue
  • 1-19: 120+ days overdue

Days Beyond Terms

This is a line graph. It shows the average days beyond terms by date reported. It is for non-financial accounts only. Plus it shows any recent trends, so if you’ve improved your payment habits, it will show up here.

Business Failure Score

The next piece is on your Business Failure Score. This score runs from 1000 to 1880. It shows its own key factors, like recent balance information.

Inquiries

The next section is devoted to inquiries. It shows the date, and whether it was an inquiry on a financial or non-financial account. This is a rather short part of the report.

Bureau Messages

The bureau messages part, appears to be a free form field. It seems its purpose is to add notes to a profile. These can be notes on the number of locations, or business aliases.

Bureau Summary Data

The bureau summary data section contains a wealth of information. It shows:

  • The number of financial and non-financial accounts
  • Date the credit became active
  • Number of charge offs
  • Total dollars past due
  • Most severe status in 24 months
  • Single highest credit extended
  • Total current card exposure
  • Median balance
  • Average open balance

It also shows Recent Activity, which includes:

  • The number of accounts delinquent
  • New accounts opened
  • Inquiries and
  • Accounts updated

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Public Records

The public records section has information on:

  • Type Status:
    • Bankruptcy
    • Judgments
    • Whether judgments are satisfied or not
    • Liens filed and opened, or released
    • Number
    • Dollar and
    • Most recent date filed

If there are none reported, then the date field will indicate as much.

Additional Information

The final section appears to contain somewhat miscellaneous information, which probably doesn’t fit in well anywhere else. such as alternate company Names and DBAs.

It also contains:

  • Owners and Guarantor Names (name, type, date reported)
  • Business and Guarantor Comments (seems to be another freeform field) and
  • Report Details (this shows the date the report was generated)

Improving Your Equifax Report

Now that you know what goes into it, you can see that some of the more important pieces of data Equifax looks into are:

  • public records
  • credit usage
  • and how you handle your financial and nonfinancial accounts

Improve your Equifax score by:

  • Clearing your debts as quickly as possible and not going delinquent
  • Keeping credit utilization within reason, as that makes it easier to pay your bills
  • And avoiding late payments

Whatever improves your Equifax report is bound to improve your reports at D&B and Experian. Paying off accounts pays dividends, as does avoiding bankruptcies.

Disputing Issues with Your Equifax Report

Equifax will not change your scores without proof. They are starting to accept more and more online disputes. But include proofs of payment with it. These are documents like receipts and cancelled checks.

Fixing credit report errors also means you specifically spell out any charges you challenge. Make your dispute as crystal clear as possible. If you need to snail mail anything in, then use certified mail so that you will have proof that you sent in your dispute. Correct Equifax issues at: equifax.com/small-business-faqs/#Dispute-FAQs. Be specific about the concerns with your report.

Monitoring Equifax Credit Report Scores

At Equifax, you would use Equifax Complete. It currently costs $19.95 per month, after an offer of 30 days for $4.95. See equifax.com/equifax-complete/Equifax.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

Monitoring Your Equifax Credit Report and Other Business Credit Reports

But add together monitoring for the three biggest credit reporting agencies for a year and the cost is staggering. It costs $468 for Dun and Bradstreet, $189 for Experian, and $224.40 for Equifax (with a special). For a grand total of $881.40!

Monitoring Your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax Credit Report and Scores

You can monitor your business credit at Dun and Bradstreet, Equifax, and Experian through Credit Suite, for considerable savings over what it would cost you at those different credit bureaus. And all in one place! Credit Suite offers monitoring through the Business Finance Suite (through Nav). See what credit issuers and lenders see so you can directly improve your scores and get the business credit and funding you need. See suitelogin.com and creditsuite.com/monitoring.

Your Equifax Credit Report: Takeaways

Equifax gets much of its data from the Small Business Financial Exchange.

Monitoring all of your business credit reports is always going to be expensive. But you can save 90% by monitoring your Dun and Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax scores through Credit Suite.

The post Learn About Your Equifax Credit Report appeared first on Credit Suite.

Get to Know the Main Business Credit Scores from Equifax Loans

Are you looking for Equifax loans? Equifax is not an actual lender. But what they score will be one of the reasons whether your business can borrow money at all. So consider Equifax loans and scores. Because they are vital parts of the decision making process when it comes to borrowing money or getting credit for your business.

But first, it helps to consider what business credit actually is.

What is Business Credit? How Does it Relate to Equifax Loans?

Business credit is credit which is in the name of a business. It is not tied to the owner’s creditworthiness or Social Security Number. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

What are the Biggest Business Credit Reporting Agencies?

When you are looking at Equifax loans, then you should be looking at business credit reporting agencies. There are three large business CRAs: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. There is also the FICO SBSS business score.

Equifax Funding Data

The company gets its data from a data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange, and Net 30 type industry trade credit information from a wide variety of suppliers. These suppliers provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis.

Equifax Financial Report Details and Scores

Equifax has a few main scores: 

  • The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services; plus the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers
  • The Small Business Failure Risk Score
  • The Payment Trend, and the Payment Index

Check out a sample Equifax business credit report at assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

What is the Purpose of Equifax Loans Scores?

It is a good idea to explore the purpose of scores. Scores answer one basic question: How likely is a business to go severely delinquent in its payments? The score is an indication of whether a company is likely to make late payments.

Equifax’s Credit Risk Scores for Equifax Loans

It is time to consider Equifax Credit Risk scores. 

The key factors are:

  • Evidence of Non-Financial Trades Ever Cycle 2+ Delinquent or Charge-Off
  • Length of Time Since Oldest Financial Account Opened Suggests Lower Risk
  • Available Credit Limit on Revolving Trades Suggests Lower Risk, and
  • Company Size (Number of Employees)

Any of these can suggest lower risk.

Equifax Loans Credit Suite

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services

Check out the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services. The Business Credit Risk Score predicts the likelihood of a business incurring a 90 days severe delinquency, or charge-off over the next 12 months. So the score ranges from 101 to 992. A lower score indicates higher risk.

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers

Compare with the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers. This score predicts severe delinquency or change-offs, on supplier accounts, or bankruptcy within 12 months. So its scores range from 101 to 816.

The Small Business Failure Score

Check out the Small Business Failure Risk Score. So this score runs from 1000 to 1880. Higher scores mean a business is less likely to fail.

Key Factors

The key factors for the Small Business Failure Score are:

  • Length of Time Since Oldest Financial Account Opened Suggests Lower Risk
  • Total Balance to Total Current Credit Limit Average Utilization in Prior 3 Months Suggests Higher Risk
  • Worst Payment Status on All Trades in the Prior 24 Months Suggests Higher Risk, and
  • Evidence of Non-Financial Trades for two or more Cycles Historically

Any of these can help to determine Equifax loans decisions.

Details on the Small Business Failure Score

Let’s look at the Small Business Failure Score. The Business Failure Score predicts the likelihood of a business failing through either formal or informal bankruptcy over the next 12 months. So the score ranges from 1000 to 1610. A lower score indicates higher risk.

Payment Trend

So check out the Payment Trend. The Payment Trend shows a twelve month payment trend. This is in comparison to the industry norm. It measures the average days beyond terms by date reported. So this is for non-financial accounts only.

Trended Data

Equifax is using trended data to help its customers make lending and credit decisions. Because trended data helps businesses to identify those more likely to default or declare bankruptcy. And it helps them to monitor on-going account activities. So it also helps them to refine and monitor underwriting and modeling strategies. And it helps to predict propensity to pay. And it helps identify abnormal spending patterns to mitigate fraud and reduce delinquency.

Equifax Loans Credit Suite

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

What is the Equifax Loans Payment Index?

Let’s look at the Payment Index. The Payment Index compares payments to the industry norm. 

90 or better means Paid as Agreed. So 80 to 89 means one to 30 days overdue. 60 to 79 means 31 to 60 days overdue. 

40 to 59 means 61 to 90 days overdue. So 20 to 39 means 91 to 120 days overdue. And one to 19 means 120 or more days overdue.

Equifax Loans Business Credit Scores are Combined with Consumer Scores

Equifax is blending scores with consumer scores. And Equifax offers a blended option. It is for the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services and the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers. Both of these scores can be used with commercial-only data or commercial and consumer credit data.

A For-Instance

For example, the blended option for the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services uses consumer credit information on the business owner, principal, or guarantor. It adds this information to public records, firmographics, and supplier credit history data. It also combined with lease payment and banking information.

Equifax Loans Business Credit Reports

Consider Equifax business credit reports. An Equifax business credit report also includes information on the percent of utilization. But this is for financial accounts only. So this is the amount of credit in use. And then that figure is divided by the total amount of available credit.

An Equifax business credit report also includes information from public records. This includes bankruptcies, judgments, and liens.

An Equifax business credit report also includes information on any recent inquiries. It also shows whether the company has any alternate names, and if there is a DBA.

Equifax Loans Credit Suite

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

How You Can Navigate and Improve your Equifax Business Credit Report

Let’s look at your actual Equifax business credit report. It divides into sections. Here’s a sample Business Credit Advantage report: https://sbcr.experian.com/pdp.aspx?pg=Sample-BcaP&ftr=nolinksCloseButton&hdr=reportPopup&link=5558

Company Identifying Information

The first part is devoted to identifying information about your company, e. g. the business name, and its address and telephone number, but also details such as whether or not your small business is incorporated, and the date you first went into business. This area will also consist of the number of employees and your company’s annual sales. This sector will additionally display if there are any alerts. So it is at the top.

Scores

The following portion consists of two scores:

  1. Your business credit score and
  2. Your financial stability risk rating

Credit Summary

In the summary component, the report shows the number of your business’s tradeline accounts, and the number of business inquiries. It also has your total outstanding balance, and any derogatory information such as liens, judgments, and bankruptcies. If there are any specific tax liens or the like, those are specified further down in the report. And it has the single greatest amount of credit extended, the median amount of credit extended, and the highest and lowest open 6 month balances. 

Payment Trend Summary

So this next piece is a number of graphs regarding your payment trends over time.

Trade Payment Information, Inquiries, Collection Filings and Summary

These sections offer more information about the above sections. Also, they contain dates and balances. The Trade Payment Information portion also contains the terms you are paying to various supplier categories. 

Commercial Banking, Insurance, Leasing

Next are the specifics on your bank accounts, insurance accounts, and any leases your business is obligated to pay back.

Judgment Filings and Tax Filings

So these two portions show the specifics about any tax liens and judgements against your business. 

Hence the details include date, jurisdiction or location, and liability amounts.

UCC Filings and UCC Filings Summary

A Uniform Commercial Code filing is often a part of getting a loan or having credit extended to a business.

These sections have all the details on any UCC filings as against your business. These details include the date, the filing jurisdiction, and the name of the party holding the lien.

Score Improvement Tips

So Equifax offers tips to improve your score. These include urging businesses to negotiate net 30 terms and pay their debts on time. Tips also include keeping your credit utilization within reason and length of credit history.

Furthermore, the end of a typical report gives information on how to dispute any errors.

Equifax Loans: Takeaways

Equifax has five main business credit scores. These are:

  • The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services
  • Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers
  • Also, the Small Business Failure Risk Score; Payment Trend, and 
  • the Payment Index

An Equifax financial report will also contain information on public records and more.

While there is technically nothing known as Equifax loans, all of the Equifax funding information you could ever want is in their reports.

The post Get to Know the Main Business Credit Scores from Equifax Loans appeared first on Credit Suite.

Get to Know the Main Business Credit Scores from Equifax Loans

Are you looking for Equifax loans? Equifax is not an actual lender. But what they score will be one of the reasons whether your business can borrow money at all. So consider Equifax loans and scores. Because they are vital parts of the decision making process when it comes to borrowing money or getting credit for your business.

But first, it helps to consider what business credit actually is.

What is Business Credit? How Does it Relate to Equifax Loans?

Business credit is credit which is in the name of a business. It is not tied to the owner’s creditworthiness or Social Security Number. Instead, business credit scores depend on how well a company can pay its bills. Consumer and business credit scores can vary dramatically.

What are the Biggest Business Credit Reporting Agencies?

When you are looking at Equifax loans, then you should be looking at business credit reporting agencies. There are three large business CRAs: Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, and Equifax. There is also the FICO SBSS business score.

Equifax Funding Data

The company gets its data from a data sharing agreement with the Small Business Exchange, and Net 30 type industry trade credit information from a wide variety of suppliers. These suppliers provide products and services to businesses on an invoice basis.

Equifax Financial Report Details and Scores

Equifax has a few main scores: 

  • The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services; plus the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers
  • The Small Business Failure Risk Score
  • The Payment Trend, and the Payment Index

Check out a sample Equifax business credit report at assets.equifax.com/assets/usis/small_business_sample_credit_report.pdf.

What is the Purpose of Equifax Loans Scores?

It is a good idea to explore the purpose of scores. Scores answer one basic question: How likely is a business to go severely delinquent in its payments? The score is an indication of whether a company is likely to make late payments.

Equifax’s Credit Risk Scores for Equifax Loans

It is time to consider Equifax Credit Risk scores. 

The key factors are:

  • Evidence of Non-Financial Trades Ever Cycle 2+ Delinquent or Charge-Off
  • Length of Time Since Oldest Financial Account Opened Suggests Lower Risk
  • Available Credit Limit on Revolving Trades Suggests Lower Risk, and
  • Company Size (Number of Employees)

Any of these can suggest lower risk.

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services

Check out the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services. The Business Credit Risk Score predicts the likelihood of a business incurring a 90 days severe delinquency, or charge-off over the next 12 months. So the score ranges from 101 to 992. A lower score indicates higher risk.

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers

Compare with the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers. This score predicts severe delinquency or change-offs, on supplier accounts, or bankruptcy within 12 months. So its scores range from 101 to 816.

The Small Business Failure Score

Check out the Small Business Failure Risk Score. So this score runs from 1000 to 1880. Higher scores mean a business is less likely to fail.

Key Factors

The key factors for the Small Business Failure Score are:

  • Length of Time Since Oldest Financial Account Opened Suggests Lower Risk
  • Total Balance to Total Current Credit Limit Average Utilization in Prior 3 Months Suggests Higher Risk
  • Worst Payment Status on All Trades in the Prior 24 Months Suggests Higher Risk, and
  • Evidence of Non-Financial Trades for two or more Cycles Historically

Any of these can help to determine Equifax loans decisions.

Details on the Small Business Failure Score

Let’s look at the Small Business Failure Score. The Business Failure Score predicts the likelihood of a business failing through either formal or informal bankruptcy over the next 12 months. So the score ranges from 1000 to 1610. A lower score indicates higher risk.

Payment Trend

So check out the Payment Trend. The Payment Trend shows a twelve month payment trend. This is in comparison to the industry norm. It measures the average days beyond terms by date reported. So this is for non-financial accounts only.

Trended Data

Equifax is using trended data to help its customers make lending and credit decisions. Because trended data helps businesses to identify those more likely to default or declare bankruptcy. And it helps them to monitor on-going account activities. So it also helps them to refine and monitor underwriting and modeling strategies. And it helps to predict propensity to pay. And it helps identify abnormal spending patterns to mitigate fraud and reduce delinquency.

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

What is the Equifax Loans Payment Index?

Let’s look at the Payment Index. The Payment Index compares payments to the industry norm. 

90 or better means Paid as Agreed. So 80 to 89 means one to 30 days overdue. 60 to 79 means 31 to 60 days overdue. 

40 to 59 means 61 to 90 days overdue. So 20 to 39 means 91 to 120 days overdue. And one to 19 means 120 or more days overdue.

Equifax Loans Business Credit Scores are Combined with Consumer Scores

Equifax is blending scores with consumer scores. And Equifax offers a blended option. It is for the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services and the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers. Both of these scores can be used with commercial-only data or commercial and consumer credit data.

A For-Instance

For example, the blended option for the Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services uses consumer credit information on the business owner, principal, or guarantor. It adds this information to public records, firmographics, and supplier credit history data. It also combined with lease payment and banking information.

Equifax Loans Business Credit Reports

Consider Equifax business credit reports. An Equifax business credit report also includes information on the percent of utilization. But this is for financial accounts only. So this is the amount of credit in use. And then that figure is divided by the total amount of available credit.

An Equifax business credit report also includes information from public records. This includes bankruptcies, judgments, and liens.

An Equifax business credit report also includes information on any recent inquiries. It also shows whether the company has any alternate names, and if there is a DBA.

Learn more here and start building business credit with your company’s EIN, not your SSN.

How You Can Navigate and Improve your Equifax Business Credit Report

Let’s look at your actual Equifax business credit report. It divides into sections. Here’s a sample Business Credit Advantage report: https://sbcr.experian.com/pdp.aspx?pg=Sample-BcaP&ftr=nolinksCloseButton&hdr=reportPopup&link=5558

Company Identifying Information

The first part is devoted to identifying information about your company, e. g. the business name, and its address and telephone number, but also details such as whether or not your small business is incorporated, and the date you first went into business. This area will also consist of the number of employees and your company’s annual sales. This sector will additionally display if there are any alerts. So it is at the top.

Scores

The following portion consists of two scores:

  1. Your business credit score and
  2. Your financial stability risk rating

Credit Summary

In the summary component, the report shows the number of your business’s tradeline accounts, and the number of business inquiries. It also has your total outstanding balance, and any derogatory information such as liens, judgments, and bankruptcies. If there are any specific tax liens or the like, those are specified further down in the report. And it has the single greatest amount of credit extended, the median amount of credit extended, and the highest and lowest open 6 month balances. 

Payment Trend Summary

So this next piece is a number of graphs regarding your payment trends over time.

Trade Payment Information, Inquiries, Collection Filings and Summary

These sections offer more information about the above sections. Also, they contain dates and balances. The Trade Payment Information portion also contains the terms you are paying to various supplier categories. 

Commercial Banking, Insurance, Leasing

Next are the specifics on your bank accounts, insurance accounts, and any leases your business is obligated to pay back.

Judgment Filings and Tax Filings

So these two portions show the specifics about any tax liens and judgements against your business. 

Hence the details include date, jurisdiction or location, and liability amounts.

UCC Filings and UCC Filings Summary

A Uniform Commercial Code filing is often a part of getting a loan or having credit extended to a business.

These sections have all the details on any UCC filings as against your business. These details include the date, the filing jurisdiction, and the name of the party holding the lien.

Score Improvement Tips

So Equifax offers tips to improve your score. These include urging businesses to negotiate net 30 terms and pay their debts on time. Tips also include keeping your credit utilization within reason and length of credit history.

Furthermore, the end of a typical report gives information on how to dispute any errors.

Equifax Loans: Takeaways

Equifax has five main business credit scores. These are:

  • The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Financial Services
  • Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers
  • Also, the Small Business Failure Risk Score; Payment Trend, and 
  • the Payment Index

An Equifax financial report will also contain information on public records and more.

While there is technically nothing known as Equifax loans, all of the Equifax funding information you could ever want is in their reports.

The post Get to Know the Main Business Credit Scores from Equifax Loans appeared first on Credit Suite.

The post Get to Know the Main Business Credit Scores from Equifax Loans appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

Equifax Business Credit and Overall Fundability

Business credit is just one of many factors that affects the fundability of your business.  Your Equifax business credit score, your D&B business credit score, your Experian business credit score, and any other agency your lender may pull a credit score from all have a huge impact on your ability to get funding for your business. 

They might use reports from any of these agencies or a combination.  Since you can’t know which reports they will look at, you have to understand each one.  You need to know what information it gives them and where that information comes from. It is important to understand Equifax business credit. 

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

How Equifax Business Credit Can Affect the Overall Fundability of Your Business

In order to build and maintain strong fundability, you need to understand everything you can about the reports from each of the big three credit reporting agencies, and what they tell lenders about your business.

Equifax Business Credit Reports

Equifax collects information similar to Dun and Bradstreet, including data from the following sources. 

  • information from public records
  •  financial data from the business
  •  payment history from creditors
  • Credit utilization is also a factor, which accounts for how much credit you are using versus the amount of credit you have available to use.

The information is used to calculate various scores, including the business credit risk score and the business failure score. The first measures how likely it is that a business will become 90 days or more delinquent on bills over the next year.  It ranges from 101 to 992.  

The second, ranges from 1,000 to 1610.  Likewise, it predicts how likely it is that the business will file for bankruptcy over the next 12-month period.  A lower score indicates higher risk. 

They also calculate what they call the business payment index.  This is the Equifax version of the Dun & Bradstreet PAYDEX.  It even runs on the same scale of 0 to 100.  It’s an indicator of payment history over the past year. In contrast to the PAYDEX however, you must  reach a score of 90 or higher for it to be a good score.  

In addition, Equifax offers business identity reports to confirm a company actually exists. It verifies details such as the company’s tax ID, number of employees, and yearly sales. 

Equifax does not allow business owners to request a file be opened for their own company.  They decide themselves when to start a credit file on a specific company. 

Financial and trade data are combined, and they add in utility and telephone payment data.  Public records are also a source of information.  

Equifax Business credit scores include: 

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers

It is scored on a scale of 1 to 100, with 90+ indicating that a business has paid its obligations as agreed.  An 80 to 89 means they are 1 to 30 days past due, 60 to 79 indicates they are 31-60 days overdue, 40 to 59 is 61 to 90 days past the payment date.  It  just goes down from there. 

Business Failure Risk Score

This score indicates the chance of a company paying its bills late on the following scale: 

  • 497 – 816: 25% or less chance of payment being overdue
  • 452 – 496: 26 – 50% chance of payment going overdue
  • 415 – 451: 51 – 74% chance of delinquent payments
  • 101 – 414: 75 – 100% chance of delinquent payments

Public Records Report

The purpose of this report is to list bankruptcies, judgments, and liens along with the amount, date of the most recent filing, and how they were satisfied. 

Credit Usage Report

This a pie chart that shows your company’s credit usage.  It gives a visual of what percent of your available credit you are using. That is known as your credit utilization ratio, and it has a pretty big impact on your overall credit score.

Credit Report Summary

The summary report shows the number of your business’s credit accounts, as well as the date each one became active. It also lists any amounts past due, along with your most severe status of the past 24 months. 

The highest amount of credit extended, the median balance, and the average open balance are included as well. 

Additionally, the report lists recent activity such as number of new accounts opened recently, delinquent accounts, number of updated accounts, and inquiries. 

Financial Account Highlights

This report shows details for the past 36 months, including credit accounts and leases. It lists the status, open and close date, original and current credit limits, and any past due amount for each.  In addition, the payment amount and frequency for each account, as well as whether or not it is secured are also noted.

Does Equifax Business Credit Really Matter? 

Yes, all business credit matters! Why do you need separate business credit? Here’s why. According to Inc.com, small business owners who understand their business credit scores are 41% more likely to get approval when they apply for a business loan. You can’t understand it if you don’t have it. Right? 

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

Also, if the unthinkable happens and your personal credit tanks, you need to be able to continue to run and grow your business. If your business credit is strong, you can still do that no matter what is happening with your personal credit. 

It’s true, a new business will not have any business credit.  However, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Building business credit is important, so that when the time comes, you can keep your personal credit separate and finance business growth using your business credit. 

How Can I Improve my Equifax Business Credit? 

What if your Equifax business credit isn’t so great?  Here are some simple things you can do to boost it. 

Add New Trade Lines

Don’t pay for them. There is no proof that buying tradelines actually helps.  If you do things the right way, it happens for free and it for sure works. There are a few ways to get it done. 

First, you can ask the vendors you already work with about starting a credit relationship.  Ask if they will extend you credit based on the merits of the business relationship. Then, ask if they will report the payments.  Even if you only get one or two reporting, your credit score will increase with every on-time payment recorded. 

Next, you can ask utilities, telephone companies, and internet companies to report the payments you already make to them on a regular basis. They don’t have to do it, but there is no harm in asking and it is an easy way to get more accounts reporting without actually opening new accounts.

Lastly, if you have a poor credit score, you can work with starter vendors in the vendor credit tier.  These are retailers that sell things you use everyday in your business anyway.  Often, they will extend net terms on invoices without a credit check and report your payment to the credit agencies.  

Ask to Delete Paid off Collections

Did you know that if you have an account that goes to collections, it will stay on your credit report even after you pay it off?  That’s right. The negative hit stays on your report even if you pay off the account in full. However, you can ask that they remove it. 

Ensure All Information is Correct and Up to Date

Take the initiative to notify credit agencies of changes in address, phone number, email addresses, etc.  In addition, monitor your business credit reports so you can dispute any mistakes.  

Update the details if there are errors or the information is incomplete. Do this for Equifax here: www.equifax.com/business/small-business. 

Ask for An Increase to Your Credit Limit 

Your credit utilization ratio is the amount of debt you have in relation to the amount of credit you have available to you. If you are using a ton of your available credit, your ratio will be high, and vice versa.  When people ask themselves how to increase business credit, they often realize this. The next step, for most, is to add accounts to increase the amount of credit available. 

However, this isn’t always the best option because the average age of all reporting accounts affects your credit score as well.  If you are adding new accounts, that average age decreases, which negatively affects your account.  

Another option, which works much better, is to ask your current accounts to raise your credit limit.  This way, you have more available credit, decrease your credit utilization ratio, and leave your average age of accounts unaffected. 

Make Payments on Time!

The number one way to increase Equifax business credit is to make consistent, on-time payments.  Here’s a bonus tip too. If you find that you need to stop carrying so many balances and have the means to pay a little extra on minimums, pick the balance with the highest interest rate and put all of your extra onto that balance.  

Once it is paid off, take the total payment amount and pay that amount extra on the balance with the next highest interest rate.  This will create a sort of snowball effect. As you see your balances getting paid down, you will see your business credit score increase. You’ll save money on interest also, since you are paying off the highest interest rate balance first. 

Monitor Your Business Credit Regularly

It’s important to monitor your Equifax business credit to know which accounts are reporting, which are not, and to catch any mistakes that may pop up.  Because you will catch mistakes faster, this could help you build business credit faster. 

You can purchase reports directly from Equifax.  Unfortunately, you can’t get a Equifax business credit report like you can a personal credit report. 

The only real way to get a free copy of your credit report is if you are denied a loan based on your business credit.  Of course, this is not a fun way to see your business credit reports for free. After denial, you will receive a letter in the mail from the agency that provided the lender with your report.  You will have the opportunity to request a free copy of the report that the lender saw, so that you can see why the result was denial. You have 90 days to submit your request. Note that if your lender did not use Equifax, you will not be getting a copy of your Equifax report.

Other than being denied for a business loan, here are a few other hacks to get you at least a sneak peek  of your business credit. 

Nav

Nav is a service that will let you see a summary of your credit reports from all three of the major credit reporting agencies.  However, these are only summaries, not full reports. Generally, that means you can see your score, and maybe the accounts you have listed.  While this will help you see where you stand, it will not suffice for the purpose of correcting mistakes or even to show you what you need to do to improve your score. You do have the option to pay for more information though.

Credit.net

Credit.net does not offer ongoing free business credit reports.  However, you can get a free trial. There is no credit card requirement either.  After you pull the report, you have 30 days to check it out. This means at least once you can get a totally free look at your report, because there is no fear of missing a cancelation deadline and having to pay anyway. 

Scorely 

This is a lesser known credit reporting agency that will let you see your credit report for free before you pay for an ongoing subscription.  Unlike Nav or Credit.net, they are actually calculating their own score similar to the big 3 (Experian, Equifax, and Dun & Bradstreet.) They strive to be totally transparent and to make their reports easy to understand. Seeing your Scorely report will give you an idea of where you stand, but it will not help you know exactly what your Equifax business credit report says. 

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

Your Equifax Business Credit Can Have a Huge Impact on FundabilityEquifax Biz Credit Report Credit Suite

Really, all business credit definitely has a huge impact on fundability.  I mean, in truth your scores from all of the big three should be similar because they are pulling information from the same general sources.  They will likely not be exact however, and there is no way to know which one a lender may pull. 

That is why it is important to understand each one and how they impact fundability.  Remember though, there are lots of factors that affect fundability. Even if your business credit score is stellar, you could still run into issues.  You need to take the whole picture into account. 

The post Equifax Business Credit and Overall Fundability appeared first on Credit Suite.

Monitor Your Credit Score at D&B, Experian, and Equifax

While there are a number of other business credit reporting agencies out there, D&B, Experian, and Equifax are known as the big three.  Not surprisingly, they are the largest and most commonly used. As such, their reports have an influence on lenders when it comes to making lending decisions.  This means that it is vital to your business to monitor your credit score with these companies. How do you do that? What does your score even mean? What else are the reports telling lenders?

Monitor Your Credit Score and Understand What It is Telling Lenders

Your business needs funding to survive.  Of course, your business credit score plays a huge role in the fundability of your business.  If you do not understand your score and the rest of the report however, you can’t do anything about it.  You have to know what reports the CRAs are showing lenders, what is on them, and how they are used. To do this, you have to monitor your credit score. 

Check out our best webinar with its trustworthy list of seven vendors to help you build business credit.

Monitor Your Credit Score: Dun & Bradstreet 

Dun & Bradstreet offers a number of business credit reports.  In fact, there are six in all. Each contains varying information that is meant to alert lenders to your creditworthiness, or lack thereof.  

The PAYDEX is the report lenders use most often.  Likely, this is because it is most similar to the consumer FICO.   It measures payment history on a scale of 1 to 100. A 70 or higher is acceptable.   For context, a score of 100 shows payments are made in advance. A score of 1 indicates that they are 120 day, or more, past due.

The other Dun & Bradstreet Credit Reports include:

Dun and Bradstreet Delinquency Predictor Score

The delinquency predictor score measures how likely it is that the company will not pay, 

will be late paying, or will fall into bankruptcy.  On a scale of 1 to 5, a 2 is good.

Financial Stress Score

As you might imagine, the financial stress score measures pressure on the balance sheet.  As a result, it shows how likely the company is to shut down within 12 months. These scores range from 5 to 1, and a score of 2 is good.  

Supplier Evaluation Risk Rating

This one ranks the odds of a company surviving for a year.  The minimum score is a 9 and the

 maximum is 1.  A good score is 5.

Credit Limit Recommendation

As its name indicates, this is a recommendation that reflects a business’s borrowing capacity.  Even more, it is a guide for how much debt a company can handle. Typically, creditors use this to 

determine how much credit to extend. 

D&B Credit Rating

This is a rating that ranks business risk on a scale of one to four.  A score of 2 is good. The rating is 

given in conjunction with letters, the combination of which indicate a company’s net worth. 

Monitor Your Business Credit: Experian Commercial 

Experian uses what it calls Intelliscore for its ranking.  This involves more than 800 unique factors combined to predict a company’s credit risk. With Intelliscore, a score of 76 or higher indicates a low risk of default. If a score falls between 51 to 75, it shows a low to medium risk.  Scores from 26 to 50 are medium risk. Lastly, from 25 down to 1 is medium high to high risk. 

Experian offers a number of other scores including: 

  • Intelliscore Plus

The Intelliscore Plus is a predictive percentile score that indicates the likelihood that a business will be seriously delinquent, or have a major financial issue, in the next year.  

It uses more even more factors to calculate a score than the original Intelliscore.  Payment history still accounts for 5 to 10%. However, current payment status, trade balances, and percent of accounts delinquent make up 50 to 60% of the score. Credit utilization, company profile, age of the business, industry risk, and public records account for the rest.  Public records include: 

  • liens
  • judgements
  • collections
  • bankruptcies
  • other derogatory items

Data comes from suppliers, lenders, legal filings, collection agencies, credit card companies, and of course public records.

  • The Experian Financial Stability Risk Score (FSR)

This predicts the potential of a business defaulting on its obligations or going bankrupt.  The score identifies high risk businesses using public records. These records include high use of credit lines, severely delinquent payments, tax liens, judgments, collection accounts, risk industries, length of time in business, etc. 

  • Experian’s Blended Score

This is a one pager that provides a quick look at the business and its owner.  A combined business-owner credit scoring model is more comprehensive than a business only or consumer only model.  Blended scores have been found to outperform consumer or business alone by 10 – 20%.

Check out our best webinar with its trustworthy list of seven vendors to help you build business credit.

Monitor Your Credit Score: Equifax Business 

Equifax business combines financial data with industry trade data, and then adds in utility and telephone payment data.  They also use public records information.  

Credit scores from Equifax Business include: 

The Small Business Credit Risk Score for Suppliers

This ranks on a scale 1 to 100, with 90+ indicating that a business has paid its obligations as agreed.  An 80 to 89 means they are 1 to 30 days past due, 60 to 79 indicates they are 31-60 days overdue, and a score of 40 to 59 is 61 to 90 days past the date the payment was due.  In the same way, score simply decrease further from this point. 

Business Failure Risk Score

This score indicates the chance of a company paying its bills late on the following scale: 

  • 497 – 816: 25% or less chance of payment being late
  • 452 – 496: 26 – 50% chance of late payment
  • 415 – 451: 51 – 74% chance of late payments
  • 101 – 414: 75 – 100% chance of late payments

Public Records Report

The purpose of this report is to list bankruptcies, judgments, and liens along with the amount, date of the most recent filing, and how they were satisfied. 

Credit Usage Report

This is a pie chart that gives a visual of your company’s credit usage.  It is a way to see in picture form what percent of your available credit you are using. That is known as your credit utilization ratio, and it has a pretty big impact on your overall credit score.

Credit Report Summary

The summary report shows the number of your business’s credit accounts, as well as the date each one became active. It also lists any amounts past due, along with your most severe status of the past 24 months. 

The highest amount of credit extended, the median balance, and the average open balance are also included.

Additionally, the report lists recent activity such as number of new accounts opened recently, delinquent accounts, number of updated accounts, and inquiries. 

Financial Account Highlights

This report shows details for the past 36 months, including credit accounts and leases. It lists the status, open and close dates, and original and current credit limits. It also shows any past due amount for each.  In addition, the payment amount and frequency for each account, as well as its security status can be seen.

Monitor Your Credit Score: How Can You See Your Reports? 

Now that you know what reports each of the big three offers, you need to know how to see what yours are telling lenders about your business.  That’s the whole reason you monitor your business credit. It can help you get an idea of the fundability of your business. Unfortunately, you cannot get a free copy of your business credit reports like you can with your personal credit reports.  It costs money to monitor your business credit as a general rule.

For example, the big three charge close to $50 or more for each report: 

  • Dun & Bradstreet reports range in price from $61 to $229 per report. 
  • Experian reports are $49.95 per report. 
  • Equifax is $99.95 per report. 

However, you can monitor your credit with D&B and Experian at a fraction of these costs by going to https://www.creditsuite.com/monitoring/. 

Knowing this, there are some one-time options for seeing at least some of the information on some of your credit reports for free.  These typically come in the form of a free trial. 

Monitor Your Credit:  See Your Credit Report for Free

The only real way to get a free copy of your credit report is if you are denied a loan based on your business credit.  Of course, this is not a fun way to see your business credit reports for free. After denial, you will receive a letter in the mail from the agency that provided the lender with your report.  You will have the opportunity to request a free copy of the report that the lender saw, so that you can see why the result was a denial. You have 90 days to submit your request.

In addition to business loan denial, there are a few other options. 

Nav

Nav is a service that will let you see a summary of your credit reports from all three of the major credit reporting agencies.  However, these are only summaries, not full reports. Generally, that means you can see your score, and maybe the accounts you have listed.  While this will help you see where you stand, it will not suffice for the purpose of correcting mistakes or even to show you what you need to do to improve your score. You do have the option to pay for more information though.

Credit.net

While Credit.net does not offer ongoing free business credit reports, you can access a free trial.  There is no credit card required, and after you pull the report, you have 30 days to check it out. This means at least once you can get a totally free look at your report, because there is no fear of missing a cancellation deadline and having to pay anyway. 

Scorely 

This is a lesser known credit reporting agency that will let you see your credit report for free before you pay for an ongoing subscription.  Unlike Nav or Credit.net, they actually calculate their own score similar to the big 3 (Experian, Equifax, and Dun & Bradstreet.) They strive to be totally transparent and to make their reports easy to understand. 

Monitor Your Credit Score: What Can You Do About It?

First, if your business score contains mistakes, you can dispute them.  Then, you can have the mistakes taken off. It needs to be in writing directly to the credit reporting agency.  In addition, you will need to include backup documentation that supports your argument. Do not send originals however. Instead, send copies. 

In contrast, if there are no mistakes but your credit is still lacking, start now making payments on time.  Furthermore, ask telephone and utility accounts to report your on time payments to the CRAs. They are not required to, but some will if you ask.  Additionally, ask your landlord to report your rent payments. Also, work with starter vendors that will offer net 30 invoices without a credit check and that will report your payments.  Go here to find a few to start with. 

Most importantly, pay your bills on time. This is the number one way to increase your business credit score.

Check out our best webinar with its trustworthy list of seven vendors to help you build business credit.

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Monitor Your Credit Score: The More You Know the More You Grow

You can’t know how to fix a problem until you know the problem exists.  This is why it is important to monitor your credit score. Once you know your score and whatever else your reports say about your business, you can figure out what to do about it.  Knowing is half the battle. 

Once you know what information lenders are seeing about your business, you can take action that will help you become more fundable.  Maybe you need to get more diligent about making payments on time. Perhaps you need to dispute mistakes or add accounts. Regardless, you will have no clue what you need to do if you do not monitor your credit.  By keeping an eye on things, you can be sure your business has access to the funding it needs to grow and thrive.  

 

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